Riots? I blame Cheryl Cole.

It's taken me a few days to decide what I think about the riots and looting in London and elsewhere. As a Londoner, it was horrible to watch places that were so familiar, burning. I worked in Croydon for years and got the bus home every day from outside Reeves, but I didn't realise quite how fond of it I was. No such worries with the area round Clapham Junction; I knew exactly how fond of it I was and it was terrible to see it being broken and looted.

So over the last few days I've been reading newspapers and listening to Radio Four and thinking about what's gone on. And I've decided that it's all Cheryl Cole's fault. That sounds a bit glib, but I do honestly feel something's gone wrong in our society and the X Factor and its ilk are a good illustration.

I am often shocked by the attitudes of my younger colleagues towards money and stuff. They measure success in things and are always noticing how big so-and-so's engagement ring is, or whinging about how they only have one designer handbag. I had a bit of a disagreement with one colleague recently about engagement rings. She said a big rock was an investment and I said if we'd had £6000 to spare when we got engaged, I'd rather have spent £1000 on a ring and the rest on a kitchen. Or a new car. Or our bathroom. You get the picture. Not only did she not agree, she didn't speak to me for THREE hours, so disgusted was she with my attitude.

Anyway, while pondering this approach to life, it struck me that we are surrounded by pictures of people who are rewarded for having no discernible talent. So lazy is Cheryl Cole that she can't even be bothered to listen to Elton John's greatest hits before Elton John week on the X Factor. But she's rich. Footballers are indeed talented but millions of pounds worth of talent? I don't think so. Coleen Rooney has been on holiday ten times this year. TEN TIMES. She does nothing. Katie Price is a horrible person. Loaded, though. People are plucked from obscurity and given wealth and adoration - for a while at least. And now everyone expects something for nothing.

I don't even think this sense of entitlement ends with young people. I think Tracey Emin's complaints about the 50% rate of tax (http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/oct/04/tracey-emin-tax-protest-france) were vile. I think MPs fiddling their expenses just because everyone else was doing it is unforgiveable. I hate rich people playing the system and paying less tax than their cleaner. The amount of mums I've heard saying they pay their nanny cash in hand is shocking. We're all at it.

While I do think the rioters need to be punished, I am worried that David Cameron, Boris Johnson and the rest of them will think sending a few people to prison will end this. I fear the cancer in society goes much deeper than just the actions of some idiots on Monday night and I'm not sure what the answer is. But I've got an inkling it might start with the X Factor...